Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., holds up paperwork during a news conference in Boston Friday, Sept. 21, 2012 as he criticized Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren's role in a case involving victims of asbestos poisoning. Brown charges that the Harvard Law School professor was paid nearly $250,000 by Travelers Insurance to help get the company "off the hook" for hefty asbestos settlements. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

BOSTON -- Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown on Friday continued to hammer Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren for her work representing an insurance company in a case involving asbestos poisoning victims – even as an attorney for some of those victims came out in support of Warren.

“Prof. Warren is not just a Harvard Law professor, she is also a hired gun,” Brown told reporters at his Boston headquarters Friday. “In the case of Travelers Insurance – the largest insurance company in America – she was hired to get them off the hook for settlements sought by asbestos poisoning.”

However, after Brown’s press conference, Francis Boudrow, business manager for a Boston union representing asbestos workers that has endorsed Warren, and David McMorris, an attorney with Thornton and Naumes, who represented some of the victims in the Travelers case, defended Warren’s record. “The victory she won at the Supreme Court was in effect supporting the victims of asbestos exposure in their right to collect future benefits,” Boudrow said.

Brown raised the Supreme Court case involving Travelers Insurance in Thursday night’s debate, when he accused Warren of siding with a major corporation to deny benefits to victims of asbestos poisoning. Warren responded that she has been working on behalf of working families and asbestos victims. Later, she told reporters that she was defending a legal principle involving protecting trusts so future victims could be compensated.

At issue is an enormously complex 2009 Supreme Court case – Travelers v. Bailey – in which Warren was called in as a bankruptcy expert to represent the insurance company.

The facts laid out by the Globe are as follows: Travelers had insured asbestos manufacturer Johns-Manville, which went bankrupt in 1986. In exchange for a court order protecting it from future lawsuits, Travelers agreed to pay $80 million toward a larger trust fund that would pay off current and future asbestos victims who sued Johns-Manville. But victims still found ways to sue the insurer, so Travelers reached another settlement with asbestos victims in 2004, this time requiring Travelers to pay $500 million into the fund in exchange for immunity from future lawsuits. Another insurance company – Chubb – challenged the settlement, as did a small group of asbestos victims. Warren helped represent Travelers before the Supreme Court, defending the settlement.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Travelers. However, the Supreme Court sent some aspects of the litigation back to the lower courts, and the case is still pending. Travelers has not yet paid any of the $500 million – and may not be required to do so.

Greg Griffiths, far left, worker from Local #6 of the International Association of Heat & Frost Insulators & Asbestos Workers, holds up his jacket after a news conference outside the headquarters of Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Scott Brown in Boston Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. Business manager Francis Boudrow, far right in sunglasses, and others from Local #6 defended Democratic opponent Elizabeth Warren's role in an asbestos poisoning case where she says she served as a consultant defending the use of trust funds to ensure that all victims of asbestos poisoning were paid. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

The Globe reported that the results for asbestos victims were mixed. On one hand, the Globe wrote, Warren helped preserve a bankruptcy law that gave victims of corporate wrongdoing a better shot at compensation. On the other hand, the victims in this case have not been compensated.

The Brown campaign on Friday called attention to public documents highlighting Warren’s pay from the Travelers case, as well as briefs she filed on behalf of Travelers. Financial disclosure forms Warren filed between 2008 and 2010 show payments of at least $212,000 from Travelers and its law firm. Brown argued that Warren, in the case, was clearly working against asbestos victims.

Brown, speaking to reporters, called Warren’s statement that she worked for asbestos victims “outrageous.”

“I don’t know anybody who’s hired by an insurance company that was actually working for the victims,” he said. “To have huge insurance corporations, they don’t hire big-time attorneys from Harvard to fight against their interests.”

“When she talks about a rigged system, where big corporations can afford to pay high priced lobbyists, it’s also rigged because they can also pay high-power attorneys like Professor Warren to create legal arguments to make sure that they’re free from paying the obligations to the victims,” Brown said.

However, the Warren campaign responded that Warren was protecting a legal principle that will help the victims. The campaign said Chubb and the others who challenged the 2004 settlement were challenging the constitutional right of the bankruptcy court to create a trust. Had the Supreme Court not ruled in favor of Travelers, it would have become more difficult to establish trusts, which give current and future victims of corporate wrongdoing a way to be compensated without a lengthy trial process.

McMorris, speaking to reporters, said Warren got involved to protect the settlement between Travelers and asbestos victims against the challenge from Chubb Insurance. Though Travelers’ goal was to gain immunity, the settlement would have compensated the victims. McMorris said Travelers reneged on the settlement, which is why victims have not been paid. But, McMorris said, “The victims would have no chance to get paid by Travelers were it not for the work of Elizabeth Warren…She’s been with the victims then and she’s with the victims now.”

“Travelers paid Elizabeth Warren to defend the settlement,” McMorris said. “She was retained by Travelers for the victims’ interest.”

McMorris said Brown is “trying to mislead the public.”

McMorris has donated more than $200,000 to Democratic politicians in Massachusetts and nationally. He has contributed the maximum allowed $5,000 to Warren’s campaign.

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